Republican Union of France

The Republican Union was a radical parliamentary group in the French Third Republic that existed from 1871 to 1894. The group was founded by moderate radicals, former Communards, and opponents of the peace treaty with Prussia, and it was led by Leon Gambetta. The party's other leaders included Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Edgar Quinet, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, Emile Littre, Charles Floquet, Georges Clemenceau, Arthur Ranc, and Gustave Courbet, and it initially sat on the extreme left of Parliament. During the 1870s, the group became closer to Jules Ferry's Opportunists, and its popularity decreased after 1885 as radicals left the grouping to form their own "Radical Left" group. In 1901, the Opportunists and Republicans merged into the Democratic Republican Alliance.